I’m now reading Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. I’d already read Joel Christian Gill’s graphic adaptation of it, n wanted to read the original. It’s a very deep dive ino American history, an awesome task of research into details of history I’d never encountered before. And, of course, viewed from the viewpoint of a black scholar looking to chronicle how racist ideas arose and spread. There are a couple of items I think he erred it (small things unrelated to racism, and not unexpected in a book of this size and depth) and a few things coming up that I know from the graphic novel I’m going to question. Such as the success of Tarzan of the Apes being a reaction to Jack Johnson’s winning the boxing title. Right now I’m a bit shy of halfway through.
After that, it’s on to the Stanley Kravitz unabridged translation of Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island, which I actually started before I picked up Kendi’s book. It claimed to be the first unabridged translation into English, but they later retreated somewhat from that, since the 1965 translation bills itself on both front and back covers as “unabridged”. And I read that one, many years ago.
On audio, I read Anthony Horowitz’ Sherlock Holmes novel The House of Silk. It’s the kind of thing that couldn’t have been published back in Doyle’s day, because of the sexual themes and implications. I’d guessed or deduced several of the revelations before they were made and explained, but Horowitz lards his narrative with so many details that there were layers upon layers of revelation at the end, with mysteries you didn’t even realize were there.It’s a good read, but it’s not Doyle.
Right now I’m re-listening to The Future of War by H.G. Wells, written in the midst of WWI and published before the war ended. It’s interesting to read Wells’ o-the-spot reactions, since he was one who pointed out long before the fact how air power would change warfare, moving the action away from “the front” with aerial bombardment far from the lines. He also notably wrote about tanks in his 103 story “The Land Ironclads”, and this book devotes an entire chapter to tanks. He acknowledges that he had a part in the development of the idea, but says he did no more than take the idea and pass it along; tanks had more than on father. Having seen that his predictions about the utility of tanks and the way they changed warfare came true, it’s interesting to see where he predicts them going. Although tanks are called “Armored Cav” today, Wells saw the airplanes as the successors to horse cavalry, not tanks. His vision was that tanks would become much larger and powerful – which did, indeed, happen. But he saw there being no limit to their size and destructiveness, and saw them becoming mobile fortresses dominating the battlefield wherever they were.
But as tanks become larger, they also become heavier and more difficult to move, which puts a practical limit on their size. The biggest tank ever built was the German Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus in July 1944. It weighted 188 tons, and was the biggest that a tank could be built while still being able to contain the moto needed to propel it. It had a top speed of 14 mph and was too heavy to use bridges – it was expected to ford any rivers it came across. Its size didn’t keep it from being captured by Russian forces. This is one case where Wells’ foresight failed him.
Wells wrote about “atomic bombs” in his novel The World Set Free, and how these would affect warfare. He actually did live to see the effect of real atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but, as far as I know, didn’t comment on this case of his predictions becoming true. One website cites him saying "It is the end, but that was a quote from his last book, The Mind at the End of its Tether, written before Hiroshima (although published afterwards). I’d be curious to know what he did think, on learning about it.
